


Wingspan

by Minutia_R



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Animal Transformation, M/M, Magic, Peril, Serious Injuries, communication issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-06 18:24:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8764051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minutia_R/pseuds/Minutia_R
Summary: With the crew facing an army of ghosts and trolls, Onni flies to the rescue, only to find himself unable to return to human form when the fight is over.Reynir's been wanting to get closer to Onni for a while now.  Taking care of an injured, grumpy owl isn't exactly what he had in mind, though.(But he'll totally take it.)(Note: diverges from canon at page 642.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was loosely inspired by resonant's classic fic [The Familiar](http://archiveofourown.org/works/98433).
> 
> Thank you so much to Elleth for letting me bounce ideas off her and making suggestions!
> 
> I don't know what the update schedule is going to be like for this, but I wanted to post at least one chapter before it got hopelessly jossed. You can consider it an AU from page 642. I may incorporate stuff from later if it works with the story, but then again I may not.

When an explosion rocks the tank, Tuuri swings her feet off the bunk and is halfway through the door of the sleeping compartment before Reynir can open his mouth to say, “Sigrun said we should stay here.”

It’s a token protest and he knows it--Tuuri is really smart and brave and good at fixing things, and that must be why she’s lasted in the military for as long as she has, because it’s sure not for her ability to follow orders.

“ _You_ stay,” she says over her shoulder. “What if I have to get the tank started in a hurry?”

Forget that. Reynir doesn’t have to follow her orders. He doesn’t have to follow anyone’s orders-- _he’s_ not military. Instead, he follows her into the cab, and Kisa hops off the bunk and follows him. Tuuri slides into the driver’s seat, grips the steering wheel--more for comfort than to get ready to drive at a moment’s notice, Reynir would bet. At least, he feels the need to hold onto something, and the back of her seat is right there, so he digs his fingers into it and they both stare out the windshield, transfixed, unable to look away.

Fires are burning in the field--are those the runes Reynir drew?--and by their light he can dimly make out trolls swarming. They shy away from the light, and one and then another staggers backwards, blown open by gunfire. He can hear the shots overhead. The rest of the crew must be stationed on the roof, and at least one of them still whole enough to shoot.

“Lalli!” Tuuri shrieks, as a thin, pale shape streaks in front of the tank, knife drawn. “What’s he fighting? I can’t see!”

“It--” says Reynir. “It--”

It steps over Reynir’s runes like they’re nothing, tossing its head almost like it’s laughing. It’s been chasing them since Copenhagen, but it looks different than it did then. More powerful, more malevolent. Faster, but it’s advancing with an unhurried step now. It knows they can’t escape. Bullets don’t worry it, even if any of the three on the roof were going to shoot--and Sigrun can’t see it, and Mikkel and Emil don’t even believe it exists. Lalli is facing it alone, because Reynir wasn’t good enough.

“It’s angry,” he tells Tuuri, description failing him. “It really doesn’t like us.”

She turns on him, probably about to demand more details that he doesn’t know how to give. And at that moment, a shape plummets from the sky, almost too fast for his eyes to follow, talons extended, a high hunting shriek splitting the air.

“Is that--it’s Onni!” he says.

“What?” Tuuri whirls around, plasters herself against the windshield. “ _How?_ ”

Luckily, she doesn’t seem to be expecting an answer, because Reynir really doesn’t want to give her one. She’d probably punch him. He’d probably deserve it. He’d been so proud of himself when he’d managed to contact Onni and ask him for help. And he remembers how Onni swooped in last time and saved them like it was all in a day’s work, but--this is real. This is scary. They could all die here. And he’s dragged Onni into it.

Onni dives towards the ghost, and it’s as he gets closer that Reynir can really see how huge he is--in human form, he only comes up to about Reynir’s nose, but as an owl his wingspan might be wider than Reynir is tall. He drives the ghost back, its long-fingered feet dancing over the flames, and he seems to have hurt it--darkness pours from its insubstantial side and coats Onni’s beak and talons. He circles for another dive, and Lalli recovers his footing and his hands start to glow blue. He seems to be growing claws of his own. For half a minute, Reynir convinces himself that everything is going to be okay.

But the ghost isn’t alone. Its companions come to its side, all seeming to have adopted some variation on its shape. Lalli slashes left and right with knife and claws, forced to retreat step by step back towards the tank. The trolls are pressing closer, too, too many of them for the defenders on the roof to pick them all off as fast as they can come. Onni dives into the mass of enemies again and again, until something knocks him out of the sky. He falls, and Reynir can’t see where he’s fallen.

“Onni!” Tuuri gasps. Her hands are clenched into fists against the windshield. Reynir can hear tears in her voice. “Oh gods, please …”

She has the right idea, Reynir thinks. Anyway, he can’t just stand here and do nothing. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and starts praying. “Oðinn, Freyja, somebody, anyone who’s listening, help us. We really, really need it. Don’t let Onni be dead …”

#

The dog is running, carrying Reynir’s disembodied spirit along, the way it was when he went to contact Onni. But now it’s not the dream world he’s traveling through--it’s like he’s leapt straight through the windshield. He wants to slow down, to look back, to see what’s happening to his friends, but he can’t. He’s just a passenger. The dog knows where to go, dodging and weaving through the crowd of ghosts and trolls, and if this is the help he asked for, then he has to trust it, doesn’t he? Even if it means leaving his friends behind. Even if it means running out into the dark of the Silent World.

The dark scares Reynir--how can he run without being able to see where he’s going?--but it doesn’t bother the dog. The smell of earth and forest show the way, the feel of dirt beneath hurrying paws, the slight variations in temperature. The instinct for home. The dirt gives way to pavement, the smells of forest to the smells of a long-dead town. Danger. The dog’s hackles rise. Reynir doesn’t want to be here. But here he is. And in front of him--the dog puts on a burst of speed--light. It’s a spiritual light more than a physical one, spilling out through the multi-colored windows of the old god-house that he's seen in his dreams.

The dog stops short at the threshold, not wanting to go any further, and Reynir can't go by himself. He peers inside instead. It’s not quite the same. There's no smell of cake, or that weird soup that smells so much better than it tastes. There's no one here at all.

“Lady?” Reynir calls, trying to send forth his thoughts like he did with Onni, since his mouth is somewhere else right now. He wishes she’d remembered her name. He feels silly calling her A.

The door in the back swings open, and she steps out, the same as it happened in Reynir’s dream. But she doesn't see him or the dog waiting outside. She walks around slowly, touching the benches, a vase where Reynir remembers flowers, but now there's only the same layer of dust that's settled everywhere else. 

“It _is_ my church. I never thought I’d--” She clutches the edge of the table, lowers her head, and says, “... oh.” Then she falls silent. Tears are running down her face. Reynir spares a moment from his terror and his worry for his friends to feel awful about that too. The dog raises a mournful whine, head down on the steps of the god-house. 

“Oh!” says the woman. She takes of her glasses, scrubs a hand across her face, puts them on again, and hurries to the door where Reynir and the dog are waiting. “How did you get here?”

“It’s me! Remember?” says Reynir. “Those lost spirits I told you about caught up with us, and we need help!”

Unlike Onni, she doesn't seem to hear him. She bends down to scratch the dog between the ears. “You're a sheepdog, aren't you?” she says. “Have you come to bring my lost lambs home?”

That … sounds like something Reynir knows how to do.

#

The rest of the night is a blur of running, circling, nipping at heels, dodging out of the way of return bites. The dog knows what to do, and--like on the mission in general--Reynir is just along for the ride. He sees Lalli beside him, sometimes. Lalli seems to understand what’s going on without any need for words, the way he understood the best way to use Reynir’s runes. The others are there too, occasionally--Emil, Mikkel, and Sigrun. He thinks at one point Tuuri starts the tank and follows him. He never sees Onni. Doesn’t know what’s become of him. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he’s vaguely glad that he can’t think right now.

And then even that awareness fades.

#

Reynir wakes up on the floor in the cab of the tank. Someone has thrown a blanket over him, but he’s still colder than he’s ever been. He tries taking off his gloves and tucking his hands into his armpits. It doesn’t help. Gradually, he becomes aware that it isn’t just the cold that’s woken him up. There are voices coming from the sleeping compartment. Angry voices. Tuuri and Mikkel are arguing in some Scandinavian language. Probably two different Scandinavian languages, actually, like Tuuri keeps explaining, but they all sound the same to Reynir. He’s gotten better at understanding them, in bits and pieces--a lot of the words really are the same as in Icelandic, once you get used to the funny way they say them. But it helps when you can see the people talking, and when you know what they’re talking about in the first place. Also, when you’re not freezing and exhausted. Two out of four is the best Reynir can do at the moment. So he gets up and wraps the blanket around his shoulders and goes to the sleeping compartment.

Everyone’s there, and alive--that’s the first thing Reynir notices. Lalli is on Emil’s bunk, slumped on Emil’s shoulder, asleep. Emil is hardly more awake, blinking, shock-pale underneath the blood and gunk he’s covered in. Reynir can’t tell how much is his. Sigrun leans against a wall. Her arm hangs limply by her side. Did she hurt it again, or did the stitches from the first time come open? And Mikkel and Tuuri are standing over Tuuri’s bunk, arguing, and on the bunk-- “Onni!” says Reynir.

Mikkel turns and gives him a look of utter disgust. “Not you, too.”

Onni is still an owl. He looks smaller now when he’s not in flight, not even able to hold himself upright, his talons and wings twitching feebly. But if his wings were stretched out--they probably would reach to both ends of the bunk, at that. “Did you ever think,” Reynir says through chattering teeth, “that m-maybe everyone else is right, and you’re wrong?”

In the end Sigrun settles the argument by simply refusing to let Mikkel look at her arm until he’s checked over Onni first--at least, that’s the gist of it as far as Reynir can tell. Tuuri looks weak with relief until Sigrun adds something that makes Tuuri turn on her and say in a choked voice, “Sigrun!”

Sigrun shrugs. She says something else, out of which Reynir can pick the word _warrior_.

Yes. Onni is that. And Mikkel is going to fix him, so he’ll be fine. And so will everyone else. Reynir clings to those thoughts and doesn’t let himself think anything different as he stumbles over to his mattress, and curls up to sleep some more.


	2. Chapter 2

Onni’s place in the dreamworld is as close as Lalli’s now, which makes sense. They’re all within touching distance of each other. Reynir is tired--he didn’t know you could be this tired in a dream--but it’s not much more than a single long stride from his place to Onni’s.

Onni isn’t there. Does that mean he’s awake? Or … something else? The trees look alive, flourishing and green, and so do the water-weeds washing up against the shore. There are still mushrooms springing up from the forest path where Reynir last saw Onni in human shape. At first, Reynir is wandering looking for Onni, but at some point it turns into just walking. He’s never really explored this place, which is so different than anywhere he’s been. There was always something else going on. And Onni didn’t exactly invite him--but Onni isn’t here to stop him now.

The thought gives Reynir pause. First, because maybe he’s being kind of rude. Second, because it isn’t exactly true. This is where Onni lives in the dreamworld, but it also, in some way Reynir doesn’t understand, _is_ Onni. An expression of his soul as much as the great owl is.

Reynir’s visit to Lalli’s place is almost an afterthought. Lalli isn’t there, either, but there’s the familiar expectant stillness that means that Lalli is awake and the place is just waiting for him to come back. Reynir doesn’t set foot in there without an invitation--Lalli’s made it clear how he feels about _that_.

It’s about time Reynir woke up, too.

#

He’s cold and alone again, but it’s not so bad this time. Not as cold. He’s on his own mattress, and there’s light coming in from the door to the office, and the sounds of unintelligible conversation from outside are quiet and calm.

As soon as Reynir starts stirring, Lalli walks in, holding a cup with steam rising from the top which he shoves unceremoniously into Reynir’s hands. “You,” he says in … Swedish? Probably Swedish. “Magic, much. Drink.”

“Oh!” says Reynir. It’s really thoughtful of Lalli. He racks his brain for the word in Finnish, but can’t find it. The truth is, he’s been neglecting the Finnish column of his vocabulary sheets. He can talk to Tuuri and Onni in Icelandic, and Lalli doesn’t usually show much interest in talking at all. So he has to settle for saying, “Thank you,” in hopefully the same language Lalli’s been speaking to him in.

Lalli shrugs and walks out again, and Reynir doesn’t know if he understood or not. Cautiously, he takes a sip of the drink. It tastes green and maybe a bit like tree bark, very bitter and actually pretty awful. At least it’s hot. He wraps his fingers tighter around the cup and feels the life flowing back into them, spreading all through his chest when he swallows. Maybe it’s magic. He finishes the whole thing, just to be safe.

When Reynir goes outside, he can see it’s already afternoon. Sigrun is crouched down on the ground, and when he looks closer, Reynir spots the bottom of Tuuri’s feet sticking out from underneath the tank. It’s their conversation that he heard--he can’t quite follow it, but it seems to be about how soon Tuuri can get the tank running. Which, apparently, has been in about half an hour ever since breakfast. It looks like they’re probably stuck here for another night.

It could be worse. Sigrun doesn’t really seem worried, just a bit annoyed that Tuuri can’t make her overly-optimistic estimates come true through sheer force of will. From the look of the torn-up parts arrayed on the ground beside her, it’s a miracle that she managed to get the tank here in the first place. The proximity sensors are set up along the low stone wall that surrounds the field they’re parked in--a field dotted with short standing stones, some of them decorated with the same rune that’s everywhere in the god-house. The god-house itself looms up behind the tank. It’s odd, seeing it in the real world, with his own eyes. Reynir kind of wants to go inside and take a look around, and he kind of really doesn’t.

Mikkel has set up his fire and soup pot and is sitting on one of the standing stones. Suddenly Reynir remembers where he’s seen a field like this before--it’s an Old World graveyard, and he knows because he’s sometimes seen spirits in them, the shy and quiet sort of spirits that he knows from home. This place seems deserted, but it still makes Reynir a little nervous for Mikkel to be sitting on one of their stones. It’s his country, though. Probably he knows what’s okay.

There’s a small crate with the symbol for explosives sitting by Mikkel’s knee, and when Reynir peers inside Onni swivels his head and peers back up at him with one round, golden eye. The other one is crusted shut. One wing is bandaged tightly to his side. He looks … better than last night, maybe?

“Hi,” says Reynir, and when that doesn’t get a response, he looks back up at Mikkel. “How’s Onni?”

“The owl has not once tried to disturb the dressings on his injuries,” says Mikkel. “It’s quite refreshing, really.”

“Because he knows you’re trying to help him,” says Reynir. “Doesn’t that make you think that he’s not just an ordinary owl?”

Mikkel shrugs. “If a bird is a more cooperative patient than our captain, that’s hardly indicative of anything. He’s ignored the dish of water I offered him. I’m afraid an owl’s beak may not be built for drinking; however, all animals need water one way or another, and we’re experiencing a shortage of mouse blood. He may be dehydrated.”

Onni isn’t going to die of thirst after everything. That’s just stupid. “There must be something you can do,” says Reynir. “Is there anything--can I help?”

“Hold him,” says Mikkel shortly.

“Uh.” Reynir freezes for a second in panic. Is he supposed to just--reach into the crate, or--

“Pick him up as quickly as you can, wrap an arm around his front to hold his wings still, and whatever you do keep his feet pointed away from you,” Mikkel says.

“How do you know that?”

“The feet, from bitter experience. Otherwise it’s not very different from handling a goose.”

Reynir has never handled a goose. Can he pretend Onni is a lamb? He lifts him out of the crate, the way Mikkel said--he’s lighter than a lamb. Soft, but not in the same way. It’s no use--Reynir can’t pretend he’s anything but an owl, or anyone but Onni.

If the thought of holding Onni has ever crossed his mind--and okay, maybe it has, once or twice--it really wasn't like this.

“Hey. Hey,” Reynir says soothingly. “It’s just me. Remember?” Onni’s good wing moves futilely against his arm, and he clacks his beak a couple of times before settling down. A laugh bubbles up past the lump in Reynir’s throat. It’s the most awful feeling, unbearably tender, joyful and miserable at once. “That's right, the annoying one. _You_ know.”

With Reynir holding him, Mikkel gets several droppers-full of water down Onni’s throat, followed by a couple of bites of tuna.

“Do owls eat fish?” Reynir wonders.

“This one will have to. It will be some time before he can hunt for himself, and this is the animal protein we have available. Not that we have much of it. For someone who finds a vegetarian diet so distasteful, our captain is remarkably insistent on taking in carnivorous animals.”

“Sorry,” says Reynir, even though Mikkel is acting irritated with Sigrun and not him. Maybe he’s forgotten that Reynir is the reason their food supplies are so low. Probably not, though. That seems like the sort of detail that Mikkel would remember.

On the other hand, Lalli seems to think that Reynir has something to do with the fact that they’re all alive this afternoon. So maybe it evens out somehow.

Mikkel leaves Reynir in charge of the soup--and of Onni--when he goes to check on Sigrun. Reynir sits down on the stone that Mikkel vacated. Onni doesn’t seem to want to go back into the crate, so Reynir settles him on his knee instead, where he shakes out his good wing before folding it back against his body and tucking his head into his shoulder, smoothing the feathers there with his beak.

“What do you think?” Reynir asks him. “You’re a real military mage and everything. Did I help? Or am I always just making things worse?”

Onni doesn’t answer, of course.

A little while later, the crew comes for dinner, Mikkel and Sigrun arguing about something, Lalli and Emil drifting in from wherever they’ve been, Tuuri wiping off her grease-stained hands on a rag. She stops to talk to Onni, a lilting stream of Finnish that Reynir can’t understand a word of.

“Is he going to be okay?” Reynir says. “I mean--” Mikkel would know best about Onni’s physical condition, but Reynir hasn’t been able to ask him this. “Is he going to be able to turn back?”

“Oh, sure,” says Tuuri breezily. “He’s just tired out now.”

But when she gets her soup, she takes it to the opposite side of the fire to eat.

#

It’s another two days of driving before they reach the camp where the quarantine ship is supposed to pick them up. Lalli spots a couple of nests, and they have to detour around, but there aren’t any more fights. For the first time since Copenhagen, nothing’s chasing them.

Onni regains the use of his eye, and Mikkel says his wing is mending, but he stays stubbornly owl-shaped. He sleeps most of the day in the empty explosives crate. Reynir gives him his food and water before he goes to sleep himself--Onni doesn’t like it much, but he takes it well enough. It’s something for Reynir to do while the rest of the crew is busy with their jobs. Tuuri tries to help him the first night, but she’s tired and irritable from driving all day, and the whole thing just upsets both her and Onni. She doesn’t try again.

Once, Reynir sees Lalli kneeling by Onni’s crate, looking in on him. It’s only for a second, though, because as soon as Lalli realizes Reynir is watching, he acts like he was doing something else. Like his concern for Onni is something he has to hide.

When they arrive at the camp, there’s plenty of preserved food, as promised, and only a small fraction of it has spoiled. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the animal protein is some kind of tinned meat that Mikkel and Emil greet with glum resignation--apparently it’s a staple in the Danish and Swedish militaries--and everyone else, including Onni, turns up their noses (or beaks) at.

Reynir is trying to persuade Onni to try some--completely hypocritically, he has to admit, just the texture of it makes Reynir’s skin crawl and never mind the smell, but after all Reynir can survive on a vegetarian diet and Onni-as-an-owl can’t--when a solution arrives from an unexpected quarter. Kisa leaps to the edge of Onni’s crate, and at first it scares Reynir--they’re not going to fight, are they?--but she’s holding something in her mouth and she drops it into the crate. A rat.

“That’s, uh--” says Reynir nervously. “That’s not infected, is it?”

Cat and owl turn to Reynir and give him--he would swear--an identical are-you-an-idiot look. Then Onni takes the rat in one claw and tears off chunks with his beak, until the whole thing is gone, bones, fur, tail and all. He looks happier than Reynir’s seen him--well, ever, probably.

“What a good girl, Kisa,” says Reynir, scratching her under the chin. “So clever!”

Shortly, he finds himself sitting crosslegged on the hard dirt floor, Kisa on one knee, Onni on the other. Kisa tries to groom Onni and ends up with a mouthful of feathers, which makes her cough, Onni hoot indignantly, and Reynir laugh. He feels bad about it immediately. He should be worried, trying to figure out a way to fix this. And he is worried, and he’d do anything to fix it if he could. But he’s also, traitorously, happy.

#

These days, Reynir stays up late at night and tries to sleep late in the morning. It feels like he’s being lazy, but he’s not. He’s just trying to get an hour or two when he and Onni are asleep at the same time. Every morning, he goes to Onni’s place in the dreamworld. He doesn’t try to explore anymore, only stands on the shore of the lake and calls. Every morning his calls go unanswered.

Until the morning when Onni is just there, his back against the cliff face, his legs dangling out over the water, human, himself, as if he’d never been gone.

“Onni!” says Reynir, and starts running towards him, but something about Onni’s face when he looks up--the way he draws a bit back, closer to the rock face--makes Reynir slow down. Right. He can’t just pick Onni up, the way he does when he’s an owl, or--he stops short. Gives Onni some space. Says, breathlessly, “I’m really glad to see you.”

“Thank you,” says Onni gruffly, “for your help.”

It’s like a punch to the gut. Reynir wants to apologize, except that annoys Onni, and also he doesn’t know what he’s done wrong. “I--you’re welcome?” he says instead.

Onni tosses a stone out over the lake. It sails through the air, skips over the surface a few times, and sinks. “This time I know I told you not to come here.”

Oh. Reynir knows the answer to this one. “Well, no, actually, you didn’t. You asked whether you hadn’t told me not to come here, but you didn’t actually _tell_ me--”

“Give me strength,” Onni says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Anyway,” Reynir goes on, politely ignoring Onni’s outburst, “it’s not like it’s dangerous. There’s hardly any ocean between our places anymore. So it’s fine. And you have to let me come here, because we can’t talk when we’re awake, and what if you need to tell me something?”

“Like what?” says Onni, like he can’t imagine what he might have to say to Reynir.

“Like … when are you going to be yourself again? _Are_ you? Nobody knows, and Tuuri and Lalli are worried too.”

“They shouldn’t. None of you should. It’s just--I’ve never--it will come in time, that’s all.”

“Okay,” says Reynir softly. And then, “Can I help?”

Onni looks out over the water, away from Reynir, and his voice is harsh again when he says, “You’ve done enough.”

Reynir tries not to. He really does. But he can’t help it. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“For what?” Now Onni sounds genuinely puzzled. “You’ve done a lot. You didn’t make anything worse--you helped.”

Reynir can feel a blush creeping up his neck. “Oh. You, uh--you could understand me the whole time, huh.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” says Onni wryly.

Reynir has no idea what he’s talking about. He knows he’s never been any good at lying, or hiding how he feels. It’s been this way since he was a kid: he’s clear as glass.


End file.
